The present invention relates in general to passenger safety systems in road vehicles, and, more specifically, to a system for informing a driver of pre-crash and post-crash status of deployable devices in the safety system.
Since the first introduction of airbag supplemental restraint systems, the safety capability of motor vehicles has increased dramatically. Restraint systems have become highly adaptive, and the possible combinations of devices that may be deployed during a crash event are many. Examples of deployable devices that may be installed on a particular vehicle include driver and passenger front airbags, knee bolsters, side airbags, side curtain airbags, pre-tensioning belt systems, and fuel delivery systems. In view of the potential variety of devices, the vehicle driver or occupants may not be fully aware of the various safety devices that are present in the vehicle.
Deployable devices in a vehicle typically all communicate with or are directly controlled by a restraints control module in the vehicle. The restraints control module maintains status information indicative of any faults that may have occurred in any particular deployable device. The restraints control module can provide status messages over a vehicle communication bus to other electronic modules in the vehicle. Other deployable devices not controlled by the restraints control module may be integrated with a separate controller that is likewise connected to the vehicle communication bus to exchange status messages (e.g., with the restraints control module or with other systems). Due to the critical nature of restraints systems, the control modules perform diagnostic checks of the respective deployable devices. When a fault is detected, an appropriate status message is sent so that an indicator can be activated in order to alert the driver of a fault in the restraints system. However, identification of the faulted system is not usually specified in the driver notification, so that the driver may not be able to determine potential mitigating actions when using the vehicle prior to taking the vehicle to a repair facility (e.g., the driver would not know to relocate a passenger from a front passenger seat to a rear driver-side seat when a passenger side curtain airbag is faulted unless notified of the specific fault).
Due to the nature of some deployable devices, when a crash event occurs and deployable devices have deployed, it may be difficult for the driver or occupants to identify all of the deployable devices that have in fact been deployed. For example, the fuel delivery system in a vehicle may be a deployable device in the sense that when a crash event is detected then fuel delivery is disabled as a precaution against the spilling of fuel if a fuel line was compromised as a result of the impact. Typically, the engine control unit selectively activates or deactivates the fuel pump according to the manual use of the ignition switch. In response to a crash notification, the engine control unit disables the fuel pump and keeps it disabled until the driver takes specific actions to manually reset the fuel delivery function. For example, fuel delivery may be re-enabled by manually cycling the ignition key two or more times, or by pressing a reset button located in the trunk. Although the manual reset procedure is described in the owner manual for the vehicle, a driver may be unaware of or have forgotten such procedure in the minutes immediately following an impact event. Consequently, they may be unable to restart the vehicle when desired. U.S. Pat. No. 7,055,640 to Cook discloses a fuel cut-off control system for a vehicle that provides a cut-off notification signal to indicate a fuel cut-off event to the driver. However, there is no disclosure of any automatic system for generating guidance information to assist the driver in the reset procedure itself.